Today in History - May 31
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70CE May 31, Rome
captured the 1st wall of the city of Jerusalem.
(MC, 5/31/02)
455 May 31, Petronius Maximus,
senator, Emperor of Rome, was lynched.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1433 May 31, Sigismund was crowned
emperor of Rome.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1469 May 31, Manuel I, king of
Portugal (1495-1521), was born.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1531 May 31, "Women's Revolt" in
Amsterdam: wool house in churchyard.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1594 May 31, Jacopo Tintoretto
(b.1518), Italian artist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintoretto)
1621 May 31, Sir Francis Bacon was
thrown into Tower of London for overnight.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1634 May 31, Massachusetts Bay
colony annexed the Maine colony.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1665 May 31, Jerusalem's rabbi
Sjabtai Tswi proclaimed himself Messiah.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1678 May 31, The Godiva
procession, commemorating Lady Godiva's legendary ride while naked,
became part of the Coventry Fair.
(HN, 5/31/01)
1701 May 31, Alexander Cruden,
compiler of a concordance to King James Bible, was born.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1753 May 31, Pierre V. Vergniaud,
French politician, Girondin orator (guillotined in 1793), was born.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1790 May 31, The US copyright law
was enacted.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1809 May 31, Composer Franz Joseph
Haydn died in Vienna, Austria on his 77th birthday. When Napoleon’s
armies marched into Vienna, the commanding general posted guards in
front of Haydn’s house to protect Haydn from trouble, and a young
officer was sent to sing for the old man.
(AP, 5/31/97)(WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1819 May 31, Poet Walt Whitman
(d.1892) was born in West Hill, N.Y. He became America’s national poet
with vibrant works such as 1855’s Leaves of Grass. He poems included:
"When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed." Some of Whitman’s poems were
inspired by his Civil War experience as a hospital volunteer in
Washington. Although a staunch supporter of the Union cause, Whitman
comforted dying soldiers of both sides, as described in one of the
poet's wartime newspaper dispatches: "I stayed a long time by the
bedside of a new patient.... In an adjoining ward I found his
brother...It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong
Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought for their respective sides,
both badly wounded, and both brought together after a separation of
four years. Each died for his cause."
(AP, 5/31/97)(HN, 5/31/98)(HNQ,
6/1/98)(V.D.-H.K.p.278)(HNPD, 5/25/99)(HN, 5/31/99)
1832 May 31, Evariste Galois
(b.1811), French mathematician who developed a general theory of
equations, died from wounds suffered in a duel. In 2005 Mario Livio
authored “The Equation That couldn’t Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius
Discovered the Language of Symmetry.”
(www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galois.html)(Econ,
8/27/05, p.68)
1836 May 31, HMS Beagle anchored
in Simons Bay, Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1837 May 31, Astor Hotel opened in
NYC. It later became the Waldorf-Astoria. John Jacob Astor bought up
foreclosed properties during the financial bust. He later sold them for
a 10-fold profit.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R43)(MC, 5/31/02)
1854 May 31, Kansas-Nebraska Act
was passed by U.S. Congress.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1861 May 31, Gen. PGT Beauregard
was given command of Confederate Alexandria Line.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1862 May 31, At the Battle of Fair
Oaks, McClellan defeated the Confederates outside of Richmond.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1868 May 31, The 1st Memorial Day
parade was held in Ironton, Ohio.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1875 May 31, Italo Montemezzi,
composer, was born.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1879 May 31, New York's Madison
Square Garden opened its doors.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1879 May 31, 1st electric railway
opened at the Berlin Trades Exposition.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1889 May 31, Johnstown,
Pennsylvania was destroyed by a massive flood. The South Fork Dam
across a tributary of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed under
pressure from the rain-swollen Lake Conemaugh. Water slammed into
Johnstown, Pa., 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and killed 2,209
people in a flood and related fire. Torrential rains had weakened the
poorly constructed dam, located 14 miles upstream from the city. By the
afternoon of May 31, after desperate efforts to shore up the earthen
dam had failed, it broke and unleashed a 40-foot-high wave of water and
debris into Johnstown with the force of Niagara Falls. Buildings and
trees, along with animals and people--both dead and alive--piled up
against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's Stone Bridge. The mountain
of debris then caught fire, trapping hundreds. More than 2,000 people
lost their lives in the devastating Johnstown Flood. The South Fork Dam
had been constructed to create Lake Conemaugh, a playground for the
wealthy members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. In 1959
Richard O'Connor published "Johnstown, the Day the Dam Broke." In 1968
David McCullough authored “The Johnstown Flood.”
(SFC, 3/24/97, p.C2)(AP, 5/31/97)(HN, 5/31/98)(WSJ,
1/27/06, p.P8)
1892 May 31, Gregor Strasser,
German pharmacist, NSDAP-Reich organization founder, was born.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1894 May 31, Fred Allen [John
Florence Sullivan], American comedian, was born.
(HN, 5/31/01)
1894 May 31, The US Senate passed
a resolution encouraging Hawaii to establish its own form of government
without interference from the US.
(ON, 11/02, p.7)
1894 May 31, Victor Horsley,
medical researcher, published a report in Nature indicating that cats
shot through the head stop breathing and that resuscitative efforts
helped them survive.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A15)
1898 May 31, Norman Vincent Peale
(d1993), American religious leader, was born in Ohio. He later authored
"The Power of Positive Thinking."
(HN, 5/31/01)(MC, 5/31/02)
1900 May 31, U.S. troops arrived
in Peking to help put down Boxer Rebellion.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1900 May 31, Chicago’s
Northwestern Elevated began operations, and Charles T. Yerkes, its
chief visionary was present to see his project come to fruition.
(www.chicago-l.org/figures/yerkes/)
1902 May 31, The Boer War ended
between the Boars of South Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of
Vereeniging. This effectively ended a 3-year uprising by the Boers, led
by Louis Botha, commandant general of the Transvaal forces. Botha was a
signatory at the peace conference. The combination of superior fire
power and a brutal war of attrition launched by Lord Kitchener forced
the Boers to give in. Kitchener burned the farms of Africans and Boers
alike and collected as many as a 100,000 women and children in
carelessly run and unhygienic concentration camps on the open veldt.
Britain annexed Transvaal.
(V.D.-H.K.p.289)(HN, 5/31/99)(SFC, 9/25/99,
p.A21)(MC, 5/31/02) (HNQ, 6/29/02)
1907 May 31, Taxis began
running in NYC. [see Aug 13]
(MC, 5/31/02)
1908 May 31, Actor Don Ameche was
born in Kenosha, Wis.
(AP, 5/31/08)
1909 May 31, The National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held its
first conference at the United Charities Building in NYC.
(HN, 5/31/98)(MC, 5/31/02)
1910 May 31, Elizabeth Blackwell
(89), 1st woman physician, died.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1910 May 31, The Union of South
Africa was founded.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1913 May 31, The 17th Amendment to
the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators,
was declared in effect.
(AP, 5/31/97)(HN, 5/31/98)
1915 May 31, A German LZ-38
Zeppelin made an air raid on London. [see Jun 1]
(HN, 5/31/98)
1916 May 31, During World War I,
British and German fleets fought the Battle of Skagerrak at Jutland off
Denmark and 10,000 were left dead. There was no clear-cut victor,
although the British suffered heavier losses.
(HN, 5/31/98)(AP, 5/31/06)
1920 May 31, Edward Bennett
Williams, Washington lawyer, was born.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1921 May 31, A major race riot
broke out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood, the black section of town, was
burned. In 1997 Jewell Parker Rhodes wrote the novel "Magic City" based
on this event. As many as 10,000 white men and boys attacked the black
community and 35 blocks of the black business district were burned with
participation by police officers and a local unit of the National
Guard. Some 200-300 people were believed to have been killed. In 2000
the Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended that reparations be paid to
survivors of the riots. In 2001 a final state commission recommended
that reparations be paid to survivors and their descendants.
(NPR, 5/31/96)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.3)(SFC, 8/10/99,
p.A2)(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A4)
1925 May 31, Julian Beck, theater
manager, was born.
(HN, 5/31/01)
1926 May 31, Portuguese president
Bernardino Machedo resigned after coup.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1928 May 31, The first flight over
the Pacific took off from Oakland. Charles Kingsford-Smith &
Charles Ulm departed from Oakland, Ca., and arrived in Australia on
June 9.
(HN, 5/31/98)(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1930 May 31, Clint Eastwood, actor
and director, was born was born in SF and went to high school in
Oakland. He became famous for his "Dirty Harry" films and "Spaghetti
Westerns." A biography: "Clint Eastwood," by Richard Schickel was
published in 1996 and made into a TV documentary in 1997.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.C7)(HN, 5/31/98)(HN, 5/31/99)
1935 May 31, In Quetta, India, a
magnitude 7.5 earthquake killed some 50,000 people.
(AP, 12/27/03)
1937 May 31, German battleships
shelled Almeria, Spain.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1938 May 31, Peter Yarrow, (Peter,
Paul & Mary-Puff the Magic Dragon), was born in NYC.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1939 May 31, Terry Waite, Anglican
Church envoy, Lebanese hostage, was born.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1940 May 31, General Bernard
Montgomery left Dunkirk.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1940 May 31, Winston Churchill
flew to Paris.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1941 May 31, An armistice was
arranged between the British and the Iraqis. The British were to remain
in the country and the Iraqis were to do nothing to help the Axis
powers.
(HN, 5/31/99)
1942 May 31, In Australia 3 midget
submarines slipped into the Sidney Harbor after being launched from a
fleet of five larger Japanese submarines offshore. Two were spotted and
attacked, leading the two-man crews to commit suicide. A 3rd midget
submarine managed to fire two torpedoes at the US heavy cruiser USS
Chicago, one of which exploded beneath an Australian depot ship HMAS
Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. In 2006 the M24 midget submarine was
found by scuba divers in deep waters off the coast. In 2007 the
Australian government decided to leave the M24 and its 2 Japanese
sailors undisturbed on the seabed.
(AFP, 11/24/06)(AFP, 5/23/07)
1942 May 31, Luftwaffe bombed
Canterbury.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1943 May 31, Joe Namath, NFL QB
(NY Jets), $400,000 man (1969 Superbowl), was born in PA.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1947 May 31, Communists grabbed
power in Hungary.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1952 May 31, Walter Schellenberg,
German lawyer, headed spy plot (Venlo), died of cancer.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1953 May 31, V.I. Tatlin (b.1885),
Ukrainian-born painter and sculptor, died in Moscow.
(www.artnet.com/library/08/0834/T083448.asp)
1955 May 31, Supreme Court ordered
that states must end racial segregation "with all deliberate speed."
(HN, 5/31/98)
1955 May 31, Great Britain
proclaimed emergency crisis due to railroad strike.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1961 May 31, South Africa became
an independent republic.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1962 May 31, Adolph Eichmann
(b.1906), Gestapo official and Nazi war criminal, was hanged near Tel
Aviv, Israel, for his role in the Nazi murder of over one million Jews.
He had been nabbed in Argentina by Peter Malkin in 1960 and taken to
Israel for trial. This was the first execution to take place in the
state Israel. Eichmann completed 1,300 notebook pages while in prison
and they were OK'd for publication in 1999. In 1963 Hannah Arendt
authored "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil."
(SFEC, 11/3/96, Par p.13) (AP, 5/31/97)(HN,
5/31/99)(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C4)(WSJ, 8/31/99,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann)
1969 May 31, John Lennon and Yoko
Ono recorded "Give Peace a Chance" during their “Bed-In” at the Queen
Elizabeth’s Hotel in Montreal.
(http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/lyrics2/givepeace.html)
1970 May 31, A 7.7 slab earthquake
and debris flow in Peru killed 67,000, injured 50,000 and destroyed
186,000 buildings.
(AP,
5/31/97)(http://landslides.usgs.gov/html_files/landslides/slides/slide5.htm)
1974 May 31, Israel and Syria
signed an agreement on the Golan Heights.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1976 May 31, Martha Mitchell, the
estranged wife of former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, died in New
York.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1977 May 31, The trans-Alaska oil
pipeline was completed after three years of work.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1978 May 31, Hanna Hoch (b.1889),
German photomontage artist of the Berlin Dada movement, died. Her work
included "Cut With the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar
Beer-Belly Epoch of Germany," (1919-1920).
(SFC, 3/25/97, p.E3)(SSFC, 1/27/02,
p.C7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_H%C3%B6ch)
1979 May 31, Zimbabwe proclaimed
its independence.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1983 May 31, Jack Dempsey
(b.1895), former US heavyweight boxing champ (1919-1926), died. Dempsey
wrote a book on boxing, “Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and
Aggressive Defence” (1950). In 1999 Roger Kahn authored "A Flame of
Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring Twenties."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Dempsey)(WUD,
1994, p.385)
1985 May 31, At least 41 tornadoes
hit Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and southeastern Ontario, Canada,
during an eight-hour period killing 88 people with over 1,000 injured.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_US-Canadian_Outbreak)(AP, 5/31/05)
1987 May 31, Addressing AIDS
research supporters in Washington, D.C., President Reagan called "for
urgency, not panic," but drew scattered boos when he announced he would
seek expanded testing for the disease.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1988 May 31, On the third day of
the Moscow superpower summit, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said
maybe it was "time to bang our fists on the table" to complete work on
a strategic arms treaty. President Reagan responded: "I'll do anything
that works." Reagan received a standing ovation from students at Moscow
Univ. following a short speech with questions and answers.
(AP, 5/31/98)(HN, 5/31/99)(WSJ, 6/18/04, p.A11)
1989 May 31, Pres. G.W. Bush met
with Chancellor Kohl and addressed the citizens of Mainz, Germany. He
offered Germany a “partnership in leadership.”
(Econ, 7/8/06,
p.43)(http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/ga6-890531.htm)
1989 May 31, US House Speaker Jim
Wright, dogged by questions about his ethics, announced he would
resign. Thomas Foley succeeded him.
(AP, 5/31/99)
1989 May 31, Charles A. Hufnagel
(b.1917), artificial heart valve pioneer, died at his home in
Washington, DC.
(http://tinyurl.com/f5wdx)
1990 May 31, Seinfeld, starring
Jerry Seinfeld, debuted on NBC. [see July 5, 1989]
(www.geocities.com/r_stroup/seinepis.html)
1990 May 31, President Bush and
his wife, Barbara, welcomed Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in a
ceremony on South Lawn of the White House. The two leaders and their
aides then held talks on German reunification.
(AP, 5/31/00)
1990 May 31, In NYC the Zodiac
killer shot a 3rd victim. Joseph Ponce died from his wound on June 24.
(http://karisable.com/skazzodiac.htm)
1991 May 31, US Federal health
officials announced a new Medicare fee schedule.
(AP, 5/31/01)
1991 May 31, Pres. Jose Eduardo
dos Santos signed a peace treaty with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA, ending a
16-year-old Angola civil war. It called for a unified military and
democratic elections.
(AP, 5/31/01)(SFC, 4/5/02, p.A11)
1992 May 31, "Crazy for You" was
named Broadway's best musical at the Tony Awards; "Dancing at Lughnasa"
was named best play.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1992 May 31, An estimated 50,000
people demonstrated in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, against
Communist-organized elections.
(AP, 5/31/02)
1993 May 31, President Clinton
paid a Memorial Day visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where some
in the crowd jeered him for avoiding military service. "Disagreement is
freedom's privilege," Clinton exhorted critics.
(AP, 5/31/98)
1994 May 31, U.S. Rep. Dan
Rostenkowski, D-Ill., maintaining his innocence, was indicted on 17
felony counts alleging he'd plundered nearly $700,000 from the
government. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of misusing federal
funds and spent 451 days in federal custody.
(AP, 5/31/99)
1994 May 31, The United States
announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at
targets in the former Soviet Union.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1995 May 31, President Clinton
declared he was ready to permit the temporary use of American ground
forces in Bosnia to help UN peacekeepers move to safer positions if
necessary.
(AP, 5/31/00)
1995 May 31, Senator Bob Dole
(Kansas) accused Hollywood of promoting violence, rape and casual sex
in music and movies saying "the mainstreaming of deviancy must come to
an end."
(AP, 5/31/00)
1996 May 31, California state
authorities officially advised the 900 residents of Chualar in Monterey
County, Ca., not to use tap water due to the accumulation of nitrates
from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides.
(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A1,6)
1996 May 31, Timothy Leary died at
75 of prostate cancer. Some of his ashes were launched into space with
those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (d.1991) and 28 others.
Leary was a big promoter of LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide. He began
using the drug while at Harvard with Richard Alpert, aka Baba Ram Dass.
He was arrested in 1969 for marijuana possession and sentenced to 10
years, but escaped from captivity. In 1973 he was caught in Afghanistan
and returned to prison from which he was paroled in 1976. In 2006
Robert Greenfield authored “Timothy Leary: A Biography.”
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A1,7)(SSFC, 7/9/06, p.M3)
1996 May 31, Israeli warplanes
attacked a Hezbollah base in eastern Lebanon in retaliation for an
ambush that killed four Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)
1996 May 31, Benjamin Netanyahu
claimed victory in Israel's election for prime minister, defeating
incumbent Shimon Peres by nine-tenths of 1 percent.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1996 May 31, Tens of thousands of
teachers marched in Mexico City for a pay raise and to protest the
police crack-down on a previous march last week. Most teacher salaries
are about $400 per month.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May 31, The Finnish food
company Raisio Group has invented a new product that blocks the body’s
absorption of cholesterol. The new "pharmafood" is called benecol and
based on a plant extract known as beta sitostanol, a plant sterol
extracted from Nordic pine trees.
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.B3C)
1996 May 31, The Ex-Im Bank said
that it would not finance companies bidding on China’s massive $24
billion Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River due to human
rights and environmental issues.
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A1)
1997 May 31, Rosie Will Monroe
(77), aka Rosie the Riveter, died in Indiana. During WW II she worked
as a riveter at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Ypsilanti, Michigan,
building B-29 and B-24 bombers for the Air Force. She appeared in films
and poster used by the U.S. government to encourage women to go to work
in support of the war effort.
(www.yvonnesplace.net/news/rosemonroe.htm)
1997 May 31, Pope John Paul II
began an 11-day tour of his native Poland, his seventh visit since
assuming the papacy.
(AP, 5/31/98)
1997 May 31, It was reported that
more than 60 monk seals were killed from eating fish that had ingested
a toxic algae off of Mauritania’s Atlantic coast. It was estimated that
only some 350 of the monk seals were left worldwide.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 May 31, From Argentina it was
reported that high joblessness (17.3%) was causing riots in various
provinces outside the capital. Neuquin, Jujuy, Salta and Santa Fe had
all experienced riots.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1997 May 31, The 7-member ASEAN
alliance, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met in Kuala Lumpur
and agreed to allow Burma to become a member in July. Laos and Cambodia
were also admitted. The members were Thailand, Singapore, the
Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D3)
1997 May 31, From the Philippines
it was reported that torrential rains from Tropical Storm Levi killed
at least 53 people.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 May 31, Russia and the
Ukraine signed a friendship treaty. Boris Yeltsin traveled to Kiev to
sign the treaty.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)
1997 May 31, In Spain thousands of
olive oil workers protested in Madrid against the EU plan to force a
cut in olive oil production and to lower subsidies.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)
1998 May 31, Pres. Clinton
endorsed additional conditional financial support for Russia from the
IMF and World Bank.
(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A9)
1998 May 31, Storms tore from
Pennsylvania through New England, killing several people and knocking
out power for nearly 1 million customers.
(AP, 5/31/99)
1998 May 31, Singer Geri
Halliwell, also known as "Ginger Spice" of the Spice Girls, confirmed
she was leaving the group.
(AP, 5/31/99)
1998 May 31, In Colombian
presidential elections conservative Andres Pastrana (43), son of former
Pres. Misael Pastrana, was in a tight race with Hector Serpa (55) of
the ruling Liberals. Serpa led Pastrana 34.6 vs. 34.3 and a runoff was
set for Jun 21. Noemi Sanin, an independent female candidate, received
27% of the vote.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A12)(SFC,
6/2/98, p.A11)(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B1)
1998 May 31, In Ecuador Alvaro
Noboa, scion of the country’s wealthiest family, made a run for the
presidency in the first round of elections. Jamil Mahuad led the
elections with 36.7%, but failed to get a majority. Alvaro Noboa had
29.8%. A runoff was scheduled for Jul 12.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A8)
1998 May 31, In Montenegro a
reformist coalition led by Pres. Djukanovic led in national elections
with 50.4%.
(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A8)
1999 May 31, Last Monday of the
month. Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day, was set
aside to remember those who have died in the service of their country.
Celebrated on May 30 for the first 100 years, Memorial Day was
officially changed to the last Monday in May in 1968.
(HNPD, 5/31/99)
1999 May 31, During a Memorial Day
visit to Arlington National Cemetery, President Clinton asked Americans
to reconsider their ambivalence about Kosovo, calling it "a very small
province in a small country. But it is a big test of what we believe
in."
(AP, 5/31/00)
1999 May 31, It was reported that
Mike Moshier (51), founder of Millennium Jet Inc. in Santa Clara, Ca.,
had developed the SoloTrek XFV, a single passenger flying vehicle, that
could fly at 80 mph for up to 90 minutes as high as 10,000 feet on a
single tank of 87-octane gas.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.E3)
1999 May 31, NATO missiles killed
at least 26 people in separate attacks. In Novi Pazar an apartment
block was struck and 10 people were killed. At least 16 people were
killed on the outskirts of Surdulica, when missiles hit a hospital and
retirement complex.
(SFC, 6/1/99, p.A1,7)
1999 May 31, India agreed to hold
talks with Pakistan over Kashmir, but there was no let up in the Indian
offensive against guerrillas.
(SFC, 6/1/99, p.A8)
1999 May 31, In Turkey the treason
trial of Abdullah Ocalan was scheduled to begin on a prison island.
Ocalan offered to urge the PKK to stop its armed struggle against
Turkey and to pursue a legal process. Ocalan was later convicted and
sentenced to death, but the death sentence was commuted to life in
prison in 2002.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A8)(SFC, 6/1/99, p.A6)(AP, 5/31/04)
2000 May 31, Pres. Clinton
proposed to EU allies in Portugal to share key technology on a US
missile defense program to calm fears of a nuclear arms race that would
leave Europe vulnerable.
(SFC, 6/1/00, p.A16)(AP, 5/31/01)
2000 May 31, Tito Puente, Latin
jazz bandleader, died in New York at age 77. He recorded some 119
albums from 1949 to 2000.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.D2)
2000 May 31, In Chechnya Sergei
Zveryev, Russia’s 2nd highest official in the area, was killed by a
remote controlled bomb in Grozny. Grozny’s Mayor Supyan Makhchayev was
injured and his assistant was also killed.
(SFC, 6/1/00, p.A16)
2000 May 31, Ethiopia declared
victory over Eritrea as peace talks continued in Algeria.
(SFC, 6/1/00, p.A16)
2000 May 31, In Luxembourg Neji
Bejaoui, an unemployed Tunisian immigrant, took 37 children and 3
teachers hostage in Wasserbillig. Police posing as journalists shot and
wounded the hostage-taker after a 30-hour standoff. No one else was
injured.
(SFC, 6/1/00, p.A17)(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A14)(SFC,
6/3/00, p.A14)
2000 May 31, In Montenegro Goran
Zugic (39), security advisor to Pres. Milo Dzukanovic, was gunned down
as he arrived home.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A18)
2001 May 31, Veteran FBI agent
Robert Hanssen pleaded innocent to charges of spying for Moscow. He
later changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/31/02)
2001 May 31, Timothy McVeigh
decided to seek a postponement of his execution "to promote integrity
in the criminal justice system."
(SFC, 6/1/01, p.A1)
2001 May 31, Microsoft released
its new Office XP for Windows software.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.C1)
2001 May 31, Arlene Francis,
actress and TV personality, died in San Francisco at age 93.
(AP, 5/31/02)
2001 May 31, In Afghanistan the
Taliban barred female foreign-aid workers from driving. The virtue
ministry said the activity is harmful for society.
(WSJ, 6/1/01, p.A1)
2001 May 31, In Cuba a group of
journalists led by Raul Rivero formed an independent association, the
1st under Castro’s rule.
(SFC, 6/1/01, p.D3)
2001 May 31, In Israel a Jewish
settler was killed in the West Bank and Palestinian (17) was killed
during a clash in Ramallah. Since Sept. 483 Palestinians have died and
88 Israelis including 24 settlers.
(SFC, 6/1/01, p.D6)
2001 May 31, Faisal Husseini (60),
a moderate Palestinian leader, died in Kuwait of a heart attack. He was
a member of the PLO’s executive committee and head of the Fatah on the
West Bank.
(SFC, 6/1/01, p.D5)(AP, 5/31/02)
2002 May 31, Vermont Gov. Howard
Dean filed papers with the Federal Election Commission for "Dean for
America" presidential-campaign organization.
(WSJ, 6/23/03, p.A4)
2002 May 31, A three-judge federal
panel in Philadelphia ruled that public libraries cannot be forced to
install software that blocks sexually explicit Web sites.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2002 May 31, The World Cup soccer
tournament opened in Japan and South Korea for the first time with a
match between Senegal and defending champion France in South Korea.
Senegal upset France, 1-0.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/31/03)
2002 May 31, The US State Dept.
urged some 60,000 Americans in India to leave over concerns of war
between India and Pakistan.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A1)
2002 May 31, Antonio Pineiro (48),
opened fire in a Top Valu market in Long Beach, Ca., and killed Marcela
Perez (38), a store clerk, and Barbara Ibasco (8). Police shot and
killed Pineiro and found the year old remains of an elderly couple,
believed to be his parents, dead in his apartment.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A2)
2002 May 31, Bulgaria signed an
agreement with the US to destroy its Cold War-era missiles. The US
planned to pay the costs of destruction.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A11)
2002 May 31, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana suspended talks with the ELN.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A11)
2002 May 31, In Denmark the
Parliament voted to stiffen rules on immigration.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A9)
2002 May 31, European Union
countries formally signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, a pact aimed at
stemming pollution and global warming that has been opposed by the
United States.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A9)(AP, 5/31/03)
2002 May 31, In southern Mexico
gunmen ambushed a truckload of people and killed 26 in Agua Fria. The
dead were all from Santiago Xochiltepec and were victims of a land
dispute. 16 suspects were later arrested.
(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.A12)(SFC, 6/3/02, p.A3)
2002 May 31, It was reported that
Yemen held some 85 detainees with suspected links to the al Qaeda
network.
(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A12)
2002 May 31, Zimbabwe declared HIV
a national emergency. Some 25% of the adults there were infected with
the virus.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A11)
2003 May 31, President Bush
visited the site of the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in
Poland as he challenged allies to overcome their bitterness and
mistrust over the Iraq war and unite in the struggle against terrorism.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2003 May 31, Eric Rudolph, the
longtime fugitive charged in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing and in
attacks at an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub, was arrested in the
mountains of North Carolina.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, American forces
arrested 15 members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath Party as they met
at a police college in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, Toronto reported more
cases of SARS and said the disease may have caused the deaths of four
people at a hospital on the edge of the city.
(Reuters, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, A Chinese freighter
sank in the Baltic Sea. It carried 66,000 tons of fertilizer and leaked
over 55,270 gallons of diesel oil. Some 38,000 gallons were recovered.
(SFC, 6/3/03, p.A3)
2003 May 31, Air France planned to
ground its last 5 Concorde airplanes. The Air France Concorde, the
world's fastest and most luxurious passenger jet, flew from New York to
Paris for the last time.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.B5)(AP, 5/30/03)(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A2)
2003 May 31, Clashes between
Philippine troops and Muslim separatist guerrillas left at least 23
dead, just days before a 10-day unilateral cease-fire was set to begin.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, Russia officially
premiered the reborn Amber Room as part of the 300th anniversary of St.
Petersburg.
(SFC, 5/31/03, p.A2)
2003 May 31, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi and Hu Jintao, the new president
of China, agreed in a summit to work at defusing tensions over North
Korea.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, Singapore was taken
off the list of SARS countries.
(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A3)
2004 May 31, In Memorial Day
tributes, President Bush declared that “America is safer” because of
its fighting forces while Sen. John Kerry visited the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2004 May 31, Powerful storms again
swept across the US Midwest and beyond, knocking out power to thousands
of customers and spawning tornadoes that leveled buildings. At least 9
deaths were blamed on the storms during the Memorial Day weekend.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 May 31, In Austria a
catamaran filled 27 people overturned on Hinterbruehl Grotto, Europe's
largest underground lake, drowning 5 people after the boat's railings
formed a cage 5 feet down on the lake floor.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 May 31, Newbridge Capital, an
American private equity firm, became the 1st foreign financial to gain
control of a Chinese bank with an 18% stake in Shenzhen Development
Bank and majority control of the board.
(Econ, 6/5/04, p.70)
2004 May 31, U.S. troops clashed
with Shiite militiamen in the holy city of Kufa for a second day in
fighting that killed two Americans. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded
near the headquarters of the U.S. coalition, killing at least two
people and injuring more than 20.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 May 31, Felipe Calderon,
Mexico's energy secretary resigned, a day after President Vicente Fox
criticized him for an early jump into the 2006 presidential races.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 May 31, Nigeria’s President
Olusegun Obasanjo said that his country's 30-billion-dollar external
debt was "burdensome, unsustainable and unpayable" and appealed for
leniency from its creditors.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 May 31, In Pakistan 20-25
people were killed in Karachi in an apparent suicide bombing at a
crowded Shiite Muslim mosque.
(AP, 6/1/04)(WSJ, 8/19/04, p.A11)
2004 May 31, Ousted Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family received a first-class
diplomatic welcome from South Africa, his new home in exile.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2005 May 31, President Bush, faced
with a string of setbacks on Capitol Hill, shrugged off questions about
his political clout and promised during a news conference to keep
pushing Congress for a Social Security overhaul.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2005 May 31, Vanity Fair Magazine
revealed that W. Mark Felt (91), former FBI official, was the Watergate
whistleblower Deep Throat, who helped bring down Pres. Nixon in 1974.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 May 31, Human Events, a
conservative weekly, published a list of what 15 conservative scholars
considered to be the 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century.
(www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591)(SSFC, 6/12/05, p.C3)
2005 May 31, The US Supreme Court
overturned the 2002 criminal Enron-related conviction of Arthur
Andersen LLP ruling that the trial judge erred by granting the
government’s request to loosen the standard jury instructions.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, The Massachusetts
Legislature voted to override Gov. Romney’s veto of a bill easing
stem-cell research curbs.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) introduced its 1st PC microprocessors with a dual-core
chip design, the Athlon 64 X2.
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.C4)
2005 May 31, James Wolfensohn,
former World Bank chief, assumed the post of special envoy for Gaza
disengagement for the Quartet (USA, Russia, EU and UN). He was assigned
to co-ordinate Israel’s imminent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and to
focus on economic ways to help Palestinians after the Israeli exit. He
left the post a year later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wolfensohn)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.55)
2005 May 31, NATO troops took
command of security and reconstruction efforts in western Afghanistan
from US forces under a plan that will likely soon put NATO forces into
insurgent hot spots.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, A Belarus court
sentenced 2 opposition leaders to 3 years of compulsory labor for
organizing a 2004 anti-Lukashenko demonstration.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, In Bolivia thousands
of demonstrators prevented legislators from reaching the congressional
building Tuesday, forcing the suspension of their first session after a
weeklong recess caused by continued street protests.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, In Brazil authorities
ordered the slaughter of 17,000 chickens after 6,000 chickens died from
a mysterious respiratory illness in Mato Grosso do Sul state. Brazil is
the world's largest chicken exporter.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, China said reporter
Ching Cheong of The Straits Times, Singapore's main English-language
newspaper, has admitted to spying for a foreign intelligence agency.
Cheong’s wife said he was arrested April 22 after a source gave him
documents about purged former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, who
died this year.
(AP, 5/31/05)(WSJ, 5/31/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, In Dagestan a police
bus was bombed in Makhachkala and 7 people were killed.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 May 31, French President
Jacques Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who was
France's voice against the Iraq war, as prime minister.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, In Haiti a fire
burned through a large market in Port au Prince moments after a gun
fight erupted that killed at least one man.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, Two-thirds of
Israel's Ein Gedi nature reserve was destroyed by fire, causing
considerable damage to animal and plant life in the lush oasis
sandwiched between the harsh Judean Desert and the Dead Sea.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, Pakistan’s Pres. Gen.
Pervez Musharraf said Senior al-Qaida terrorist suspect Abu Farraj
al-Libbi, arrested on May 2, will be sent to the US for prosecution. He
is believed to be behind two assassination attempts against Musharraf
and could have received the death penalty here.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 May 31, A Russian court
declared oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of an array of charges
in a trial widely criticized as politically motivated, sentencing him
to nine years in prison minus time served. Co-defendant Platon Lebedev
also received a 9-year sentence and the 2 men were fined 17 billion
rubles ($615 million).
(AP, 5/31/05)(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A3)
2005 May 31, Sudan arrested a
second aid worker from the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) aid agency
over a report on hundreds of rapes in the troubled Darfur region.
(Reuters, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, In Switzerland
Griselidis Real (76), writer and well-known prostitute who campaigned
for the rights and dignity of sex workers, died in Geneva. In 2009 she
was re-buried in the presence of 200 people at the Cemetery of the
Kings, which is reserved for individuals that have profoundly marked
Swiss or international history.
(www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/griselidis-real-493264.html)(AP,
3/10/09)
2005 May 31, Trinidad police
arrested Basdeo Panday, former prime minister (1995-2001) and
opposition leader, and 3 others on corruption charges connected to an
airport construction contract.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2006 May 31, The US said it would
join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program
if Tehran first agreed to put challenged atomic activities on hold;
Iran dismissed the offer as "a propaganda move."
(AP, 5/31/07)
2006 May 31, Florida’s Gov. Jeb
Bush signed the Martin Lee Anderson Act, which replaced boot camps with
education based juvenile detention centers.
(Econ, 7/8/06, p.29)
2006 May 31, NBC's "Today" show
threw a going-away party for 15-year host Katie Couric, who left to
become anchor of "The CBS Evening News."
(AP, 5/31/07)
2006 May 31, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban fighters fired a grenade at a police vehicle in
southeastern Zabul province, killing the provincial deputy police chief
and wounding three officers. In Uruzgan province hundreds of suspected
Taliban fighters attacked the town of Chora and briefly occupied its
police headquarters after driving out security forces.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Smokers were required
to light up outside across much of eastern Canada, as one of North
America's most restrictive bans went into effect.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, The Canadian dollar
hit its strongest level in 28 years against the dollar, piercing
through a key chart level.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, China closed 201
Hebei clinics that aborted female fetuses and offered subsidies to
families without sons to curb widespread gender engineering.
(WSJ, 6/1/06, p.A1)
2006 May 31, In Chile police for a
second day used water cannons to scatter demonstrations by high school
students that turned violent when masked protesters started throwing
rocks near downtown Santiago. President Michelle Bachelet fired the
commander of the Santiago riot police, Col. Osvaldo Jara, in response
to the initial clashes.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, The UN Security
Council cut the number of peacekeepers deployed in Eritrea and Ethiopia
by at least one-third while extending the UN mission's mandate for
another four months.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, In France youths
torched a dozen cars and hurled stones at police in a second night of
violence in the troubled Paris suburbs, raising memories of rioting
that rocked the nation last year.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Greenpeace said
nuclear waste from a storage facility is seeping into groundwater in
the Champagne region of France and threatening vineyards that produce
the sparkling wine.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, In Indonesia a local
health official said preliminary tests have found that bird flu has
killed another person, as the country struggles to get a grip on a
spike in cases.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Two Iraqi women were
shot to death north of Baghdad after coalition forces fired on a
vehicle that failed to stop at an observation post. Iraqi police and
relatives said one of the women was about to give birth. Ali Jaafar
(25), a sportscaster for state-run al-Iraqiya TV, was gunned down in a
drive-by shooting near his home in southwestern Baghdad. A parked car
packed with explosives hit a police patrol in the northern city of
Mosul, killing at least five policemen and wounding 14. At least 25
Iraqis were killed across the country.
(AP, 5/31/06)(WSJ, 6/1/06, p.A1)
2006 May 31, A Dublin jury
convicted Rev. Daniel Doherty, a Roman Catholic priest, of raping a
13-year-old girl in 1985.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Kenya approved
legislation that included provisions to punish those found guilty of
child prostitution and sex tourism and trafficking. The new law aimed
at curbing increasing sex abuse drew protest for failing to criminalize
marital rape while penalizing false rape reports.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, Lithuania's
three-party government collapsed with the withdrawal of the Labor
Party, a key coalition partner being investigated on corruption
allegations. PM Algirdas Brazauskas announced the Baltic country's
government was resigning after an emergency meeting with his ministers.
(AP, 5/31/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.50)
2006 May 31, Malaysia’s PM
Abdullah Badawi announced a national 5-year plan. An elderly woman and
three children were feared dead following a landslide in Kuala Lumpur
that destroyed 43 homes.
(AFP, 5/31/06)(Econ, 6/17/06, p.50)
2006 May 31, Dutch pedophiles
registered a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for
sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child
pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Palestinian militants
fired homemade rockets at an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip, and
Israeli media reported that one landed near the home of Israel's
defense minister.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, In Somalia Islamic
militias and secular warlords resumed fighting for control of
Mogadishu, killing at least 13 people and wounding 11 after a five-day
lull.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, South Korea's main
opposition party won 11 of 16 key regional posts in local elections,
according to exit polls, riding to victory on nationwide sympathy for a
leader wounded in a knife assault and widespread disenchantment with
the government.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Taiwan's president
handed over day-to-day control of the island's government to the
premier in the wake of a series of scandals. Pres. Chen Shui-bian
pledged in a written statement night to give authority to Premier Su
Tseng-chang to control Taiwan's Cabinet. Police on May 24 arrested
Chen's son-in-law Chao Chien-min on suspicion he used insider
information to profit on the purchases of shares in partly state-owned
property company Taiwan Development Corp.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, The US and Vietnam
signed a trade pact that removes one of the last major hurdles in
Hanoi's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2007 May 31, President Bush, under
international pressure to take tough action against global warming,
called for a world summit to set a long-term global strategy for
reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 May 31, In a breach of
security, detailed plans for the new US Embassy under construction in
Baghdad appeared on the Web site of the architectural firm that was
contracted to design the massive facility.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 May 31, Former Presidents
Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush attended the dedication
of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 May 31, The US and Russia
agreed to put nuclear radiation monitors at all of Russia’s int’l.
border crossings by 2011.
(WSJ, 6/1/07, p.A1)
2007 May 31, New Hampshire Gov.
John Lynch signed a bill allowing civil unions for gays couples
effective next year.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom
proposed a $6.06 billion budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, a 5.4%
increase over the previous year.
(SFC, 6/1/07, p.B12)
2007 May 31, Wachovia Corp. said
it will acquire brokerage firm A.G. Edwards for $6.8 bil.
(SFC, 6/1/07, p.C3)
2007 May 31, Evan O’Dorney (13)
won the Scripps National Spelling Bee when he correctly spelled the
word “serrefine.”
(WSJ, 6/1/07, p.A1)
2007 May 31, A Taliban ambush
killed 16 policemen in a convoy on its way from the south to Kabul. A
battle pitting NATO and Afghan troops against Taliban fighters in
southern Afghanistan killed 20 militants. Taliban commander called
Mullah Naqibullah was among the dead. Taliban fighters attacked the
home of a police official in Zurmat district of Paktia province. Police
reinforcements were called in, sparking a battle that left six Taliban
dead. Five rockets were fired from the top of a mountain in Kunar
province, hitting several civilian homes and killing two women.
(AFP, 5/31/07)(AP, 5/31/07)(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 31, Australia and the
Philippines agreed to expand counter-terrorism cooperation, with elite
Australian troops to train their Philippine counterparts in the restive
south.
(AFP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, China’s state media
said fast-spreading, foul-smelling blue-green algae smothered Lake Tai
in eastern Jiangsu province, contaminating the drinking water for
millions of people and sparking panic-buying of bottled water.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, A wildlife expert
said a thousand rare black-mane lions, an Ethiopian national symbol,
and some 300 elephants are in danger after a swathe of forest that was
part of their sanctuary was cut down.
(Reuters, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, Haitian authorities
arrested 10 people, including four police officers, who were allegedly
transporting 925 pounds of cocaine in two vehicles with government
license plates.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, India and the United
States began talks intended to resolve delays in a nuclear energy deal
that will give India access to long-denied Western nuclear technology.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, Iran pledged to end
years of stonewalling and provide answers on past suspicious activities
to the UN nuclear monitoring agency probing its atomic program, in a
move being seen as an attempt to avoid new UN sanctions. Mostafa
Pourmohammadi, Iran's hard-line interior minister, encouraged temporary
marriages as a way to avoid extramarital sex, a stance many in this
conservative country fear would instead encourage prostitution. A
temporary marriage, or "sigheh," refers to a Shiite Muslim tradition
under which a man and a woman sign a contract that allows them to be
"married" for any length of time, even a few hours.
(AP, 6/1/07)(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 May 31, Lt. Gen. Raymond
Odierno, the No. 2 US commander in Iraq, said that US military officers
were talking with Iraqi militants, excluding al-Qaida, about
cease-fires and other arrangements to try to stop the violence. Saif M.
Fakhry (26), an Associated Press Television News cameraman, was shot
twice and killed in Baghdad while walking to a mosque near his home on
his day off. A suicide bomber hit a police recruiting center in
Fallujah, killing as many as 25 people. The US military said only one
policeman was killed and eight were wounded.
(AP, 6/1/07)(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, Japan failed in its
bid to lift a moratorium on commercial whaling after stormy annual
talks in Alaska of the 75-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC)
and warned it might pull out of the organization.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 31, Government spokesman
Alfred Mutua said Kenya’s police over the last few months have arrested
2,464 suspected followers of Mungiki, an outlawed religious sect whose
members are believed to have beheaded several people in recent months.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 31, Latvia's Parliament
elected Valdis Zatlers, a surgeon with no political background as, the
Baltic country's next president. He will replace outgoing President
Vaira Vike-Freiberga in July when her second and final term ends.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, Mexico's Televisa
network, known around the world for its soap operas, said it plans to
expand in China, following the lead of taco chains and other Mexican
businesses looking for a slice of the Asian nation's market.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, The Dutch news agency
ANP reported that almost half of Rotterdam's coffee shops will be
forced to stop selling cannabis because they are too close to secondary
schools.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, In northwestern
Pakistan about 100 suspected pro-Taliban militants attacked the house
of a government official before dawn, killing 13 people.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, In the Philippines 6
armed men boarded a bus in Manila and started robbing passengers. 3
suspects, the bus driver and a passenger were killed.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, President Vladimir
Putin said that tests of new Russian missiles were a response to the
planned deployment of US missile defense installations and other forces
in Europe, suggesting Washington has triggered a new arms race.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, The chief suspect in
the murder of Russian ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko accused the British
secret service of being behind the killing and said Litvinenko himself
had been spying for MI6.
(AFP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, Rwanda said a law
abolishing the death penalty would come into force at the end of July,
six months after the government first announced plans to scrap capital
punishment.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, In South Africa
Britain's PM Blair also said that Africa's leaders must get tough on
authoritarian governments, such as those in Sudan and Zimbabwe.
(Reuters, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, The Spanish
government said it has filed a lawsuit in a US federal court against an
American firm over a shipwreck the company has found laden with a
colonial-era treasure.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, Serbia arrested
Zdravko Tolimir, one of six Serb war crimes suspects still at large. He
was picked up in Belgrade and officially arrested in the Serb part of
Bosnia.
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.60)
2007 May 31, In southern Thailand
suspected insurgents sprayed gunfire into a mosque, killing 7
worshippers. Black-uniformed raiders roared into Kolomudo, a Muslim
village, firing assault rifles and hurling grenades from a pickup truck
at a group of teenagers relaxing near the mosque. When the attack was
over, five of the youths lay dead. Buddhist vigilantes were suspected.
A roadside bomb killed 11 paramilitary troops almost simultaneously in
some of the worst recent violence. A 12th soldier died the next day.
(AP, 6/1/07)(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 May 31, Turkish lawmakers
approved again a constitutional amendment that would see the president
elected by popular vote, a change vetoed last week by the outgoing head
of state. Turkey's top general said the military was ready to stage a
cross-border offensive to fight Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq and that he
already had sought government approval to mount military action.
(AFP, 5/31/07)(AP, 5/31/07)
2008 May 31, The rules panel of
the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat the delegations of
Florida and Michigan with half their votes, all but securing the
nomination for Sen. Barack Obama. Obama said he has resigned his
20-year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago
"with some sadness" in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by his
longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and more recent fiery
remarks at the church by a visiting priest.
(SSFC, 6/1/08, p.A1)(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, FDIC bank regulators
took over the First Integrity Bank in Staples, Minnesota. This was the
4th FDIC-insured bank to fail this year.
(WSJ, 6/5/08, p.A1)
2008 May 31, The US shuttle
Discovery made a successful launch from Florida. It carried a Japanese
research laboratory and key parts to fix a broken toilet in the
International Space Station.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, In El Cerrito, Ca.,
the new Playland-Not-at-the-Beach museum opened at 10979 San Pablo Ave.
It featured relics from San Francisco’s former Playland-at-the-Beach,
which was bulldozed in 1972, including one of the 278 remaining
Laughing Sals.
(SFC, 5/31/08, p.B1)
2008 May 31, In Afghanistan 2
NATO-led soldiers and as many Afghan civilians were wounded in a
suicide car bombing in the eastern city of Jalalabad. The Taliban
claimed responsibility for that attack. 2 NATO soldiers were killed in
the attack.
(AFP, 5/31/08)(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, Tropical Storm Arthur
the first named storm of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season, kicked up
surf when it made landfall at the Belize-Mexico border and headed west.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, Chinese authorities
had evacuated nearly 200,000 people and warned more than 1 million
others to be ready to leave quickly as a lake formed by a devastating
earthquake threatened to breach its dam. A Russian-designed Mi-171
transport helicopter carrying 10 people injured in the devastating
earthquake and four crew members crashed in fog and turbulence, and
authorities searched for survivors. The confirmed death toll from the
May 12 earthquake, reached nearly 69,000, with another 18,000 still
missing.
(AP, 5/31/08)(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, An Egyptian police
official said boxes of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and
anti-aircraft missiles have been found in a mountain in the northern
Sinai peninsula. He said the weapons were to be smuggled into the
neighboring Gaza Strip.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, A former Deutsche
Telekom security chief said the national phone company spied on
its staff for years to see who had unauthorized contacts with
journalists.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, President Manuel
Zelaya said that Honduras would create a civilian airport for
commercial jets on a US military airfield, diverting traffic from
Tegucigalpa's notoriously dangerous airport following a deadly crash.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, In Iraq 10 people
were killed when a suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in Hit, a
town west of Baghdad. The dead included six policemen and four
civilians.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, In Latvia about 400
gay men and women and their supporters held a parade in Riga,
accompanied by a strong police presence and chants and insults from
anti-gay activists.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, Lebanese troops shot
and killed a suicide bomber near Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee
camp. The would-be suicide bomber was identified as Mahmoud Yassin
Ahmad, a 28-year-old Palestinian who lived in the Ein el-Hilweh camp.
Earlier in the day a Lebanese soldier was killed in an explosion in the
north of the country.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, In Nigeria a senior
health department official for the federal capital said smokers in
public places in the capital of Abuja will be arrested and prosecuted
from June 1.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, An explosion in the
Gaza Strip house of Nader Abu Shaban, a Hamas militant, killed him and
wounded 16 of his relatives and neighbors.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, South African police
said on a wave of attacks on foreigners has killed 62 people since the
violence broke out three weeks ago.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, Tens of thousands of
South Koreans rallied against a government decision to import US beef
in the largest demonstration in a month of almost daily protests.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 31, In Sri Lanka 9 Tamil
Tiger rebels and four soldiers were killed in new clashes in Sri
Lanka's restive north.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 May 31, In Vietnam some 1000
workers walked off the assembly line of a Panasonic plant as inflation
reached a 13-year high of 25.2%. Some 300 strikes took place in the
first quarter as compared to 103 in the first quarter of 2007.
(WSJ, 6/3/08, p.A12)
2008 May 31, Zimbabwe state radio
reported that 2 supporters of the ruling party have been shot dead in
the country's northeast over the last 2 days, amid mounting violence
ahead of a presidential run-off next month. Police arrested Eric
Matinenga, a lawyer of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), as he went to visit arrested members in Buhera where more than
70 suspects had been arrested over recent outbreaks of violence.
(AFP, 6/1/08)(Reuters, 6/3/08)
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